Big Jim's comment about how this sounded like something from the Thomas the Tank Engine series, either books or television, reminded me that there supposedly was a movie done long, long ago on the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina (Tweetsie).

From the descriptions I've seen of it, I think it may have been one of those short subjects that, along with cartoons and newsreels, would play ahead of the feature flick. One of the things in it is a sequence of a conductor--I think it was Tweetsie's legendary Cy Crumley--shooing a cow off the track.

Can anyone confirm or correct anything about this? Was it even on the Tweetsie, or was it on another road, perhaps the Nelson & Albemarle Railway in Virginia?

Charlie

Post subject: Re: Why The Train Is Late Today

Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:22 pm

Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:27 amPosts: 500Location: Winters, TX

"McDonald's Hamburger University Class of 2017 Awaiting Transportation." Where is Monty Python and Gary Larson when you need them?

Big Jim's comment about how this sounded like something from the Thomas the Tank Engine series, either books or television, reminded me that there supposedly was a movie done long, long ago on the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina (Tweetsie).

From the descriptions I've seen of it, I think it may have been one of those short subjects that, along with cartoons and newsreels, would play ahead of the feature flick. One of the things in it is a sequence of a conductor--I think it was Tweetsie's legendary Cy Crumley--shooing a cow off the track.

Can anyone confirm or correct anything about this? Was it even on the Tweetsie, or was it on another road, perhaps the Nelson & Albemarle Railway in Virginia?

You are indeed correct. There was a film called, “Tennessee Tweetsie” (which as far as I know, doesn’t exist in any form anymore) and some magazine stories in the 30s where the pre-war excursion train would have to stop for a cow. Turns out, the cow was chained to the tracks so the passengers would have backwood stories to tell their friends when they got home.They really pushed the “hillbilly” shtick on those train, including an elderly couple who claimed they’d never left the region before, playing the part of locals who weren’t aware of anything in the outside world.People at the time had no idea that the ET&WNC was really playing some shrewd marketing to the ‘flatlander’ tourist types in the 30s.

_________________Lee Bishop

J3a-614

Post subject: Re: Why The Train Is Late Today

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:52 pm

Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:41 amPosts: 3465Location: Inwood, W.Va.

p51 wrote:

They really pushed the “hillbilly” shtick on those train, including an elderly couple who claimed they’d never left the region before, playing the part of locals who weren’t aware of anything in the outside world.

People at the time had no idea that the ET&WNC was really playing some shrewd marketing to the ‘flatlander’ tourist types in the 30s.

Ho, ho, ho! That reminds me of the stories about some real little places out west, where some tourist family would drift in, and the word would go around to whoever's turn it was to put on the feathered head dress and stand around and say "How," or "Ugh," or something else, and the tourists would get to say they saw a real, live Indian--which helped, I suppose, to sell the souvenirs and hot dogs in the one store in town.

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